The present invention relates to winders and, more particularly, to an apparatus for winding stock in side-by-side coil fashion.
A winder generally includes means for transferring stock, means for rotating a reel for winding stock, and guide means reciprocating in the direction of the reel axis to guide the winding of stock onto the reel. The traverse of the guide means has been accomplished in numerous ways such as by a cam, a lead screw with reversed rotations, or an endless belt. For successive winding of stock onto the reel, the traverse of the guide means relative to the reel must be cooperatively associated with the winding action of the reel. However, the speed of stock approaching the reel becomes high if the reel is rotated at a fixed speed since the thickness of the stock wound on the reel in the form of layers becomes large as the stock winding operation progresses. For this reason, means must be provided for slowing the rotation of the reel in order to avoid an increase of the speed of the stock approaching the reel and the traverse of the guide means must also be responsive to the means for slowing the reel.
While the above holds true for winding wire stock in coil fashion, it is far more critical in operations in which coil winding of flat or strip stock would be advantageous. It will be appreciated that coil winding flat or strip stock requires the stock to lay nearly perfectly in side-by-side coil fashion on the reel. In contrast, wire stock will simply find its own slot in the event that the winding operation is less than completely accurate. It has been found that no prior coil winder is capable of successively coil winding flat or strip stock in the required manner. With all coil winders heretofore available, the winding of flat or strip stock is not even suggested which is understandable in view of the limited cooperative accuracy in the relationship between the winding action of the reels and the traversing action of the guide means achievable with such prior art devices.
Without complete cooperative accuracy between the reels and the guide means, the failure of prior art coil winders to disclose or suggest winding flat or strip stock is not surprising. It is readily apparent that the flat or strip stock will either overlap or bind or produce too large a gap between succeeding coils should precisely accurate winding not be maintained. In the former case, there will be undesirable kinks or other imperfections in the stock caused by the winding operation while in the latter case there will be an insufficient amount of stock wound on the reel with the possibility of kinks or other imperfections on the next succeeding layer of the stock caused by the gaps either of which are highly objectionable. It has previously not been possible to successfully coil wind flat or strip stock so that it will lay nearly perfectly in side-by-side coil fashion on the reel. However, I have developed an apparatus which accomplishes these and other objectives in a most advantageous manner.
While those skilled in the art may have long been aware of the problems associated with successfully coil winding flat or strip stock, the subsequent development of satisfactory apparatus has not followed. In this and similar fields, coil winders have become somewhat more sophisticated in recent years such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,565,357, 3,413,834, 3,412,948 and 3,402,903 wherein the coil winders disclosed represent attempted improvements of limited success. While those skilled in the art have failed, I have provided an apparatus that for the first time represents a significant advance fully overcoming the problems previously believed to be inherent in winding stock to lay nearly perfectly in side-by-side coil fashion on the reel.